The Globalists and the Islamists:

Ikhwanul Muslimin, Senjata Rahasia Globalis

(Fomenting the "Clash of Civilizations" for a New World Order)

oleh: Peter Goodgame

Bagian Ketiga

The Muslim Brotherhood Branches Out

At the beginning of World War II the Muslim Brotherhood gained a huge amount of prestige when it was joined by members of the influential Azzam family of Egypt. Abdel-Rahman was the most famous of these Azzams, and his whole life had been one of service to the British Empire. After World War I he had worked with British Intelligence to help organize the political work of Libya's Senussi Brotherhood. (1) His work was very successful and the head of the Senussi Brotherhood was proclaimed king of Libya at a UN ceremony in 1951. (At first a darling of the British Empire, King Idris I led Libya until being ousted by Moammar Khaddafi in 1969. Khaddafi's own revolutionary organization had been established in London in 1966, (2) but his regime quickly fell out of favor with the British.)

After World War II Abdel-Rahman Azzam became the first Secretary-General of the British-sponsored League of Arab States . Azzam's prestige is proven by the fact that his daughter Muna was married to Mohammed, the eldest son of King Faisal of Saudi Arabia . (3)

In 1955 after General Nasser cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood the organization moved its base of operations to London and Geneva. The Geneva base was under the control of Said Ramadan, who was married to the daughter of Hasan al-Banna. Ramadan set up the Institute for Islamic Studies and under his control Geneva became a major Islamic base in Europe. Today this is where King Fahd of Saudi Arabia flees to anytime he feels that his life is in danger back in the kingdom. The following story demonstrates Ramadan's intimate connections to the worldwide Islamist underground:

Soon after the Iranian revolution a man named Ali Akbar Tabatabai became the most important voice of opposition to the Ayatollah's regime. Under the Shah he had been information counselor at the Iranian embassy in Washington D.C. and after the Shah's fall he had set up the Iran Freedom Foundation. In July of 1980 he was murdered by David Belfield, also known as Daoud Salahuddin. Belfield was a Black Muslim who was part of a gang connected with Bahram Nahidian who was reputed to be the Washington head of the Ayatollah's secret service (Savama). Less than two hours after the murder Belfield placed a person-to-person call to Said Ramadan in Geneva , and then using several different passports he fled the United States bound for Switzerland . (4)

Geneva has always been a useful base for the Muslim Brotherhood but its London headquarters became the most important. The man in charge there is Salem Azzam, a relative of Abdel-Rahman Azzam. As previously mentioned, he became the head of the Islamic Council of Europe that was formed in London in 1973 in close collaboration with Said Ramadan. Dreyfuss explains the role of the Council,

" [the Council] directs the Ikhwan [Brotherhood] from Morocco to Pakistan and India , controlling hundreds of 'religious' centers across Western Europe, and through them, thousands of fundamentalist students and Muslim clergy in both the Middle East and Europe ." (5)

In 1978 the Islamic Institute for Defense Technology was created to support the Islamic "arc of crisis" revolution. The inaugural seminar was held in London in February of 1979. It was to work hand in hand with NATO, and it was led by Salem Azzam and members of his Islamic Council of Europe. Pakistan and Afghanistan were at the top of the agenda and the IIDT helped to coordinate the massive arms shipments that were supporting the Muslim Brotherhood's struggles there and throughout the Middle East . (6)

Outside of Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood was successful in creating a number of respectable front organizations and it became widely perceived as a moderate institution that had renounced violence. But inside of Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood remained committed to the overthrow of the regime and the installation of a "pure" Islamic state and they used terrorism as the means to achieve that end.

When Anwar Sadat became president of Egypt in 1970 he began a campaign to distance his country from Nasser 's pro-Soviet policies and to realign with the West. Initially one of his most formidable opponents in this task was the Arab Socialist Unity Party. Sadat began to reconcile with the Muslim Brotherhood as a way to pressure the Arab Socialists and to solidify his regime, and he released hundreds of Muslim Brothers from prison in his first few years in office.

Throughout the history of the Muslim Brotherhood there have been six Supreme Guides. Al-Banna led until his death in 1949. He was succeeded by Hassan al-Hudaibi after a brief period of chaos in 1951. Al-Hudaibi led until his death in 1976, suffering periods of imprisonment throughout Nasser 's reign. He was succeeded by Omar el-Telmisani , who died in 1987 to be succeeded by Hamid Abdul Nasr . Both Talmisani and Nasr had been thrown in prison in 1954 during Nasser 's anti-Brotherhood purge. Sadat released Talmisani from prison in 1971 and Nasr in '72. The last Supreme Guide was Mustafa Mashhour , who took over in 1996 and led until his death on November 14, 2002. The present Supreme Guide is Maamoun al-Hudaibi, the eighty-three year-old son of the second Supreme Guide, Hassan al-Hudaibi. The Supreme Guide always maintains his residence and offices in Egypt , although the vast majority of members and most of its leadership is based abroad. For the most part the Supreme Guide is merely a figurehead and the clandestine operations of the Muslim Brotherhood are directed from London and Geneva .

Sadat sought to reconcile with the Islamists but he knew they could always be a threat and he never did lift the official government ban on the Brotherhood as a political group. Even so the Brotherhood quickly emerged as a political force. Publicly the Brotherhood tried to maintain a "moderate" stance, but behind the scenes it was spawning a number of loosely connected violent extremist groups.

The Takfir wal Hejra was one of the most important of these groups. It was led by a former Muslim Brotherhood member, Shukri Ahmed Mustafa, and it was created in the early '70s. It was publicly exposed in 1975 by the Egyptian daily Al Ahram after a number of its members were arrested. In 1977 this group abducted a former minister of religion, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein al-Dhahabi, and demanded the release of sixty prisoners and 200,000 Egyptian pounds for his release. The demands were refused and the corpse of the Sheikh was turned over, followed by several targeted bombings. On July, 8, 1977, Mustafa, the leader of the group, was arrested along with a number of his followers. Mustafa and four of his ringleaders were executed on March 19, 1978, but his terrorist organization lived on. (7)

The Organization for Islamic Liberation was another terrorist cell created by a former Muslim Brother, a man named Dr. Saleh Siriyya . In 1974 members of this group tried to take over a military academy, capture weapons and then move on an assembly where Sadat was speaking. The plan failed, eleven people died and Siriyya was captured and later executed. (8)

In 1974 security forces uncovered another group, the Islamic Liberation Party , founded in Jordan in the '50s by Sheikh Taghiud Din Nabhani , a Muslim Brother and judge originally from Haifa. This group primarily focused activity against Israel but Sadat arrested and interrogated members of the group who lived in Egypt . (9)

The two most important Egyptian terrorist organizations that were offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood that still exist today are the Jamaat al-Islamiyya , which translates as the Islamic Group , and Egyptian Islamic Jihad , also known simply as Jihad or al-Jihad. Both of them were closely involved in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat.

The Jamaat al-Islamiyya was created in 1971 to agitate against Sadat because of his cooperation with Libya 's Qaddafi. It was headed by Muslim Brother Dr. Hilmi al-Gazzar and initially refrained from violence and focused on activism within the universities, but this was soon to change. A blind sheikh by the name of Dr. Omar Ahmed Mohammed Abdel Rahman later emerged as the leader of the organization. (10)

The other prominent group, Islamic Jihad , first came to light in 1977 when Al Ahram reported that eighty members of this fighting organization had been arrested. One of Islamic Jihad's members at the time was Ayman al-Zawahiri, a young upper-class Muslim related to the Azzams. His grandmother was the sister of the illustrious Abdel-Rahman Azzam mentioned previously, and his uncle was Salem Azzam of the Islamic Council of Europe. Zawahiri had first been arrested in 1966 at the age of 16 because of his Muslim Brotherhood affiliation, and his militant views continued to grow over the years.

In early 1980 Islamic Jihad was targeted again when the government arrested seventy more members. Egypt 's prosecutor described the organization as a "fanatic terrorist group," and said that it was "financed from abroad and was armed with weapons, explosives and technical equipment." (11) However, the arrests and investigation failed to prevent the ultimate terrorist attack. Dietl describes it,

"The Jihad group made the headlines once again on October 6, 1981, when a commando squad under Khaled Islambuli shot President Anwar el-Sadat. Following arduous investigations during the summer of 1982, it became known in Cairo that the Jihad group was part of the large family enterprise of the Muslim Brotherhood. When I asked, this was conceded by the Muslim Brotherhood. In the meantime, in a unanimous statement, the Jihad group 'condemned to death' Sadat's successor Mubarak. In September 1982 the three most important leaders of the Jihad group were tracked down and arrested." (12)

Just two years prior to Sadat's assassination the International Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood had held a summit meeting in London . Brotherhood leaders from Egypt , Sudan , Jordan , Pakistan and Afghanistan converged, along with the head of the Saudi Arabian secret service, to discuss the recent achievements in Pakistan and Iran , and to discuss the future of Afghanistan , Syria and Egypt . (13)

In Egypt Sadat had continued to reconcile with the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1978 he allowed the Muslim Brotherhood's publication Al Dawa to be distributed again. In 1979 he even met with Supreme Guide Omar el-Telmisani on two occasions but nothing came of the dialogue and the Muslim Brotherhood continued its aggressive attacks on Sadat in print as well as in the mosques. Finally, just weeks before Sadat was assassinated, he had el-Telmisani arrested and a ban was placed on the distribution of Al Dawa .

When Sadat was gunned down Kemal al-Sananiry was the Muslim Brotherhood's most prominent representative in Egypt . He was arrested and interrogated and died in prison a few weeks later. The government lamely claimed that he had committed suicide, but his wife Amina rejected this explanation. She was the daughter of Sayed Qutb.

Also arrested, but later acquitted, was the blind sheikh, Omar Abdul Rahman. He had encouraged the perpetrators of the assassination by ruling that the government was led by atheists and heretics. He also permitted them to steal as a means to finance their cause and even ruled that they would be allowed to have their way with the wives of government officials if they succeeded in toppling the government. (14) Years later he was implicated in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, tried, convicted and sentenced to prison where he now sits. His two sons carry on the jihad as members of Al Qaeda and close followers of Osama bin Laden. They were highlighted in the cache of Al Qaeda videos that were recently publicized on CNN (see the clip "Roots of Hatred" ). Sheikh Rahman is still the recognized spiritual leader of the Islamic Group, and its members have vowed to take revenge on America if the diabetic Sheikh dies in his American prison.

Ayman al-Zawahiri was also arrested in connection with the assassination. After spending three years in prison he was released, whereupon he soon rose to the top of Islamic Jihad, taking over in 1993, and then linking up with Osama bin Laden in Sudan . After he fled Egypt he based his operations in Geneva , Switzerland , working  under the cover of the Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Islamic Center led by Said Ramadan. (15) (With whom Malcolm X had his famous correspondence just weeks prior to his assassination by Elijah Mohammed's Black Muslims.) Al-Zawahiri has emerged as the alleged "number two man" in the "Al Qaeda" organization. His brother Muhammad al-Zawahiri is currently in the Balkans directing Muslim attacks against Serbia and Macedonia. Reports say that he works out of a NATO-controlled area of Kosovo. (16) These two "Azzam family" brothers have always maintained their connections with the Muslim Brotherhood, despite the fact that Ayman has publicly criticized the Brotherhood for its lack of support for the revolution in Egypt . His criticism has been a useful cover for the Brotherhood which tries to maintain its "moderate" facade.

Another important figure in the Al Qaeda organization with links back to the Sadat assassination is the brother of assassin Khaled Islambuli, who was executed on April 15, 1982. Ahmad Shawqi al-Islambuli left Egypt and appeared in Karachi , Pakistan , where he helped to set up a smuggling network. Later Islambuli worked with bin Laden in Sudan setting up a militant base in Somalia , and then he became a member of bin Laden's World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders in 1998. (17)

The most recent prominent terrorist offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood is the Palestinian group HAMAS , which surfaced as a separate group in 1988 upon the release of its "Islamic Covenant," by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. He had been the head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza for a number of years and his group can be traced back to 1978 when it was registered as an Islamic association called Al-Mujamma Al-Islami . In its Islamic Covenant of 1988 the group plainly describes itself as the "Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood." (18)

Robert Dreyfuss summarizes the nature of the Muslim Brotherhood organization in the few paragraphs below. These words were written in 1980, but they are just as true today,

"The real Muslim Brotherhood is not the fanatical sheikh with his equally fanatical following, nor is it even the top mullahs and ayatollahs who lead entire movements of such madmen; Khomeini, Qaddafi, General Zia are exquisitely fashioned puppets.

The real Muslim Brothers are those whose hands are never dirtied with the business of killing and burning. They are the secretive bankers and financiers who stand behind the curtain, the members of the old Arab, Turkish, or Persian families whose geneology places them in the oligarchical elite, with smooth business and intelligence associations to the European black nobility and, especially, to the British oligarchy.

And the Muslim Brotherhood is money. Together, the Brotherhood probably controls several tens of billions of dollars in immediate liquid assets, and controls billions more in day-to-day business operations in everything from oil trade and banking to drug-running, illegal arms merchandising, and gold and diamond smuggling. By allying with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Anglo-Americans are not merely buying into a terrorists-for-hire racket; they are partners in a powerful and worldwide financial empire that extends from numbered Swiss bank accounts to offshore havens in Dubai , Kuwait and Hong Kong ." (19)

Hopefully the reader is beginning to understand how small the radical Islamist movement really is, how closely inter-connected it is, and how it all seems to tie back into the Muslim Brotherhood. The picture gets even clearer when the career of Osama bin Laden is closely inspected.

Section Notes and Sources